Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Ooops?

United agent accidentally shot at New Orleans airport

By Rebecca Ruiz, Senior editor, msnbc.com

A United Airlines employee was shot in the leg at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International airport this morning when a passenger's rifle accidentally discharged.
The agent, who is not being named by the airline, was checking the passenger in when the rifle discharged. The flier, who had declared the gun, is reported to be 65-year-old Edward Deubler, according to the Times-Picayune.
Mary Ryan, a spokesperson for United, said that the employee sustained non-life threatening injuries and is reported to be in stable condition.
The airline's policy for checking firearms follow federal regulations, which require that guns in checked baggage or separate shipping cases be unloaded and declared.
Ryan did not know whether the rifle was in a bag or case when it was handled by the United agent.

So, here is a question for our blog readers: should there be some mechanism for taking guns away from people to old or senile to handle them safely? It's hard enough to get car keys away from the elderly who are no longer safe to drive. I can only imagine that taking away the guns of those suffering from senile dementia might be even more hazardous and difficult. Should there be some sort of mandatory age check, like a driver's license renewal, after a certain age?

5 comments:

I had a roommate once who smoked so much pot we constantly questioned his sanity. He almost always thought the police were watching us.

Quite paranoid.

We owned a lot of guns. Mine were always locked up in a safe but he didn't have one. One day when he was out, we removed all the firing pins. Seemed an easy enough solution and he was none the wiser. Never did give those back when he moved out. lol

I wouldn't advocate Govt involvement persay, but nothing wrong with family getting involved.

Yes, families should be the first line of defense. But, in addition to the one-strike-you're-out rule, perhaps some type of screening could be worked into the renewal process of the gun licence, you know once we legislate mandatory licensing for all gun owners.

It didn't say in the piece you quoted what sort of rifle the passenger was checking, but I'm guessing a hunting gun. Probably a civilian version of an AR or some other auto or semi-auto military design. Either that or a bolt action or semi-auto "big game" rifle in something .300 or bigger.

Imagine, if you will, the gun gets checked in and finds it's way into the cargo/baggage hold on the aircraft. During flight, clear air turbulence causes the aircraft to pitch and yaw suddenly. Baggage in the hold gets tossed around, rifle "accidentally" discharges sending a round through the fuselage or the cabin floor, damaging hydraulics, electronics, passenger, flight crew or pilot.

Yeah, I think a little common sense might suggest that knuckleheads who've had guns for many, many years and either haven't learned, or have forgotten how, to make sure the weapon is unloaded might need to temper their desires to make the rest of us a little bit safer.